Well, no iTunes, as I didn't win the Urbs' World's Best Urban Blog, although mightily pleased to have come second (which meant narrowly beating the great Gothamist - no idea how I managed that). But, thanks to all your votes and support, I am now the World's Hottest Urban Blogger! I was pleased to fly the flag as the only UK finalist in both categories. I must thank my rather attractive Yahoo! Avatar for making me look a lot better in cyberspace than I do in reality.

More news when America wakes up, so I can find out more about what being the Urb's World's Hottest Urban Blogger actually means (Do I have to write a cheesy acceptance speech like in Miss World? Do I get a little crown and a sash? When do I get my FHM modelling contract?). But once again, thanks to everyone who voted and I'm delighted to have finally won an award for this blog!

Earlier in December I was on the Jubilee Line going to Canada Water and at Waterloo at the far end of the platforom they had some interesting signs which nicely illustrate how from early January, more people should be able to get onto the trains. It will allow "an extra 6,000 people to travel each hour when the Tube is at its busiest"

So the Jubilee Line will be up and running just in time for the station staff to go on strike at mid-day on New Year's Eve for 24 hours. For more on the New Year London Underground Strike see my earlier post. There is a slim chance that this could be averted as both parties say they are still willing to talk. Rail union leader RMT's Bob Crow said "we will make ourselves available for talks if the company shows it is prepared to negotiate seriously" and the London Underground said "We remain ready to talk to the RMT at any time to resolve this issue.....If the strike does go ahead, London Underground will seek to run services where it is safe to do so."

As usual I will keep you posted when I learn more. The very latest appears to be London Underground (LU) proposing talking to ACAS, the arbitration service, on the 29th but with RMT saying that as far as they know, no union officials will be there! (See Bloomberg News for more on this) Meanwhile, LU is urging the RMT to attend the talks on Thursday. While you wait for them to get their acts together, you might like to pop along to this post for more on the arguments behind the New Year's Eve Tube strike and join the discussion in the comments.

I'd never really seen the point of Tube travel sweets until now. With the proposed New Year's Eve London Underground strike more people will be taking to their cars and National Rail so they may need them there. But I was particularly interested to see that the flavours of these sweets seemed to be aimed at RMT union leader Bob Crowe - bitter lemon and sour grapes!

So if you've smugly done all your Christmas shopping or if you fancy going to Wapping anyway, you can have an expertly guided tour of Brunel's twin tunnels and his Wapping Shaft!

Tickets are £5 each and you also need to have a valid zone 2 ticket/travelcard/Oystercard to travel between Rotherhithe and Wapping. It includes free admission to the Brunel Museum which apparently is "decked for Christmas Shopping". Tours leave every hour on the hour from 1pm till 4pm from Rotherhithe London Underground Station - for more details - click here or call 020 7231 3840.

Just to lighten up from the proposed New Year's Eve Tube Strike, when me and Neil were travelling back yesterday on a crowded Piccadilly Line train, a couple of girls got onto the Tube dressed as Santas with collecting buckets. They were collecting for children who will be in hospices and hospitals over Christmas and it was warming to see that the majority of people in the carriage gave them some money.

A Very Merry Christmas to you all and I'll probably be back on the days between Xmas and the New Year! Have fun!

News just in that the talks between RMT and the London Underground have broken down, so short of some miracle happening it looks like the first of two 24 hour strikes will be going ahead on New Year's Eve.

"RMT officials and Tube chiefs failed to reach a deal in the dispute through the conciliation service Acas.

"London Underground station staff have also voted for another 24-hour walkout starting on 8 January......

"The Institute for Advanced Motorists said it thought the strike, which is due to begin at midday, could increase the risk of people drinking and driving because of the lack of public transport."

The full story is on the BBC and for all of our opinions and discussions check out yesterday's post.

Many thanks to regular commenter Fimb for sending the penultimate of the London Underground related Christmas gifts. It's a Toy Wooden Tube Train from the Early Learning Centre and as Fimb says it is a bargain for a fiver.

Although it's on the Early Learning Centre's website, Fimb took the above picture showing that it's still available in stores now, so if you need a last minute gift pop over to your nearest branch. I love the caption on the website though:

And just in case you couldn't get enough, she's ready for her close up, Mr DeMille:

I particularly like the length of these "leisure pants" and also the way that the general cut of them makes her .... er... arse (why split hairs when you are obviously wearing something designed to make people look at it?) look a load bigger than I'm sure it is.

I'll update the blog with the New Year's Tube strike news as and when I hear, but in the meantime you may fancy doing the blog challenge or meme on my non Tube Blog. Either put the results on your own blog (let me know if you do), or leave them in the comments area below.

With more ridiculous predictability after the threats of the Christmas strike we now have threats of a New Year Tube strike. It's probably very unlikely to happen but you can learn more about it on the BBC site. "Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) members are expected to vote for industrial action which could take place on New Year's Eve. The RMT fears the planned closures of ticket offices, as more people adopt Oyster cards, could lead to job losses.

But Tube bosses said they were redeploying staff to more "visible positions" and there would be no cuts."

The London Underground say that since the introduction of the Oystercard, one million fewer paper tickets are being sold every week. Although I can't say I've noticed any shorter queues since the Oystercard made its merry way into some commuters lives.

"Because of this reduced demand on our ticket office, we are deploying some staff to more visible positions on stations and platforms," said the spokesman.

Watch this space or Google News for further updates and the latest, but I have sneaking suspicion that it will be resolved fairly quickly and may not even reach ballot stage.

UPDATE - I was wrong. It has reached ballot stage and members voted in favour of the strike - check out the full story on Yahoo News and BBC News

"The strike is set to begin at midday on New Year's Eve and finish 24 hours later. The second one-day action will begin at 6:30 pm on January 8.

A spokesman for London Underground said they would run a service where "it was safe to do so," without elaborating."

So much for the free New Year's Eve travel sponsored by Nat West, if there's hardly any travel at all. Let's hope it does get averted by LU in the meantime.

UPDATE - Friday 23rd December - 8.30am - The talks are taking place between the RMT and the London Underground later today at Euston. Yesterday Ken Livingstone (the Mayor formally known as Red Ken) condemned the strikes saying that the RMT's plan conflicted with a "groundbreaking deal" it signed last year. The deal meant that RMT tube station staff would effectively work a 35-hour week.

Sheriff Ken said, "These moves have been agreed and safety validated for 40 out of the 44 station groups. London Underground have also given the unions categorical assurances that there will be no staff cuts.

"There can be no justification for the RMT now reneging on its agreement and trying to ruin New Year's Eve for thousands of Londoners."

UPDATE - Friday 23rd December - 3.40pmJust heard on the radio that it looks as though there has been no resolution in the dispute, so unless some miracle happens it really looks like there will be no Tubes on New Year's Eve. This has been confirmed by BBC News.

I hope NatWest ask for their money back for sponsoring the free travel.

Yet another gift that you can buy at most tourist shops in London. Obviously you don't have to use fridge magnets just for your fridge, but for filing cabinets and .... er..... well..... er... filing cabinets.

I particularly liked the chunky rubbery feel these ones had, even though the font was a bit much to be desired.

"Bored UK commuters are arranging impromtu rumpy-pumpy via their Bluetooth phones and PDAs. The new craze - known as "Toothing" and certain to displace dogging as the sexual flavour of the month - began on a London commute when a flirtatious bluejacking escalated into a meeting in the railway toilets.

According to a report on Reuters the first toother was a chap called Jon, who also goes by the exceedingly clever handle "Toothy Toothing". He says that he was flirting with a fellow commuter via Bluetooth for a couple of days on his normal train journey. Eventually, she suggested nipping into the lav for a quickie, and toothing was born.".....

"Bizarre as this sounds, Jon estimates that there are thousands (yes, thousands) of toothers on trains in the UK. The message boards on his site are certainly busy."

Mmmm. This whole thing sounded remarkably dodgy to me and with a bit of digging around I found out that it was all a hoax:

"Dozens of news organizations, including Wired News, (and the Daily Mirror - see the end of their article - "Websites have sprung up dedicated the craze, including some devoted to using it to hook up with strangers for no-strings sex.") were duped by pranksters claiming to be practitioners of "toothing," in which strangers in the U.K. were meeting up on commuter trains for clandestine sexual encounters. The liaisons were supposedly organized through messages broadcast via Bluetooth phones and handhelds. However, one of those involved now says the story was an elaborate hoax. After first creating an online forum, the pranksters persuaded friends to fill the site with scores of salacious, but fictitious, stories."

Version-3-point-1 left a cryptic message yesterday about me not receiving something about a milk carton on the London Underground. I asked her to explain and she did a little more by re-sending me the following:

Version-3-point-1 then explains that it was a fancy dress outfit which caused more than a a few looks when she got on the Tube with it:

"Mike refused to both stand and sit next to me on the Tube. Embarassed by me and my costume, he still managed to take photographs of me. I was glad I managed to cheer up some of the other passengers too. I spied some people getting out their mobile phones to take pictures as I tried to keep my balance in the milk carton."

"Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Council abolished Christmas on December 22, 1657. In London, soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary, food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being cooked could bring trouble. Cromwell considered pies as a guilty, forbidden pleasure. The traditional mincemeat pie was banned."

The DJ, Jamie Theakston took this a bit further as he reckons that the law hasn't actually been repealed, so we could all find the police knocking on our door on Xmas Day sniffing out Christmas goodies!

I have no idea where or even if you can buy these online, but if you are feeling brave enough to step out into the West End to some of those great tacky tourist shops you should be able to see an apron like the one above. Amazingly, I snapped this one at Portobello Road market in Notting Hill at the weekend along with some other Tube tat which looked way, way out of place amongst the trendy second hand or hand painted, hand dyed, made with Peruvian goats' hair gifts that you commonly find in Portobello Road.

Today is the last day to order from Amazon to get your pressies in time for Christmas, so the book above is the only one from the series available with a 24 hour delivery against it. "The only one from the series", I hear you cry. "You mean chirpy TV presenting sisters Anthea and Wendy Turner wrote more than one book about the London Underground?" It's true and they're really rather good!

Underneath the Underground: Further Tales is the 2nd book of a series that chronicles the adventures of a group of mice who live on and beneath the tracks of the London Underground. But these aren't the dirty mice, we know and er.... hate, but little cartoon characters who wear nice clothes and have names like Neil, Nigel and Nancy.

Just in case you think it's a move for the sisters to break into the children's book market (which it probably is), the series is dedicated to The Humane Research Trust, a registered charity which raises funds to develop alternative methrods to the use of animals in medical research. So you can buy these books and feel you're doing your bit for charity too!

"Don't drink and drive - use the tube! This set of 6 solid shot glasses are presented in their very own Tube. Made in the UK and a licensed London Underground product, these glasses are suitable for all types of spirits. 6 shots with the following messages: 'Not in Service' 'Zone 1' 'Danger 630 volts' 'Hold Tight' 'Mind the Gap' 'Emergency Alarm' - a really great gift." - say e-directory.

You can buy these at the London Transport Museum shop, however, if you want to buy them online in time for Xmas delivery, your last chance to order is today 19th December from this site - e-directory (telephone - 08700 273432) - where they are being sold for £14.99 which is a very good discount over the usual £21.99 price from London Transport.

"On January 7th , six months after the attacks both I and a group of friends plan to walk the Circle Line from Edgware Road Station at 10am passing through the areas affected in the blast: Russell Square, Tavistock Square, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and ending in Aldgate East. At Tavistock Square I plan to hold a small memorial for those that lost their lives or were injured on July 7th.

Please show your support and join the circle solidarity walk, or alternatively sponsor us through this site. To sign up and become a team member please contact me at: circlesolidarity@thebergers.co.uk

The walk, is now only a few weeks away. So far I have raised £1,300 for the victims and hope to reach my target in the coming weeks. Many thanks for your support."

Best of luck Caroline and hopefully everyone remembers that on August 25th with Tube Relief a group of 65 tube challengers (including many regular visitors to this site, and even I took part in a bit of it), travelled around all stations on the London Underground to raise money for the victims and also show terrorists that they weren't afraid of travelling on the tube for the fun of it. So far we have raised over £11,000 for the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund and I'd like to take this as an opportunity to thank everyone who sponsored us too.

Completely coincidentally, I've just finished writing a post about The Underground Conspiracy, a great read about drug running on the Tube, when I heard on the radio, that The Sunday Times have discovered that "Spymasters warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a 'high priority' attack specifically aimed at the London Tube.

"A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground.

The disclosure will fuel critics' suspicions that Blair decided to rule out a public inquiry into the bombings last week because it could expose intelligence failings at the highest level."

"Ministers and senior security officials have insisted that there was no warning of an imminent attack ahead of the July 7 bombings, in which 56 people died.

While technically true, the leaked document dated April, 2003, will be seized on by critics to show that ministers failed to disclose that they knew Al-Qaeda was targeting the Tube. A statement in September 2003 by the prime minister and Sir John Stevens, the then Metropolitan police commissioner, that a suicide attack was 'inevitable', did not name the Tube as a specific target."

"The Tories demanded the government publish the whole JIC document and disclose what other intelligence there had been about threats to the Tube. Patrick Mercer, the party's homeland security spokesman, said: 'This leak underlines our demand for an independent inquiry.' "

MI5 ruled London bombers were not a threat

And as if we didn't need more arguments to have a public inquiry, Ian has sent me a link The Independent who revealed: "Two of the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in the July 7 attacks were scrutinised by MI5 last year but were not considered to be a threat.....

Shahzad Tanweer, 22, who detonated a rucksack bomb on the Tube train at Aldgate, is believed to have been indirectly linked to an alleged plot to build a bomb in 2004. It has already been established that the suspected mastermind, Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, had been known to security services.

The disclosure that a second of the four bombers had come to the attention of MI5 is likely to increase pressure for a public inquiry into the London attacks and any failures in intelligence. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is resisting setting up a wide-ranging independent inquiry, instead opting for a more limited "narrative" led by a civil servant. The Independent has also established that there are so many new terrorist suspects coming to the attention of the security agencies and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch that there are not enough officers to investigate them all."

In the meantime Rachel a survivor from the King's Cross carriage that was blown up is demanding a public inquiry and urges that we sign a petition to show our support. If you believe that we should have an inquiry, please sign and also publicise on your own website or blog too.

It's a shame that The Underground Conspiracy by Catherine Storr was first published in 1987 as it meant it didn't get the sort of publicity it would get now, of a children's book crossing over into adult territory, and a great read for adults and kids alike.

The story is about Jass, a teenager who loves to travel round on the Tube, just for fun. However, her underground activities land her into quite serious and frightening trouble, when she is blackmailed into carrying packages around on the system she knows so well. It's basically drug running on the London Underground which is a remarkably sophisticated premise for a children's book, and I really urge you to read it. For tube geeks you'll see how her extreme knowledge of the London Underground system comes into play.

It's also a great gift for friends and family who may like "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" (which incidentally has a great London Underground section which describes an autistic teenager's very first Tube journey - he loses his pet rat on the tracks, almost electrocutes himself rescuing it, gets on the Tube and notices every single sign, ad, person and piece of upholstery). Like The Curious Incident, The Underground Conspiracy for a while has that same naiviety of a teenager mixed up in an adult mystery and not quite knowing how to handle it.

Last week I posted about and ordered some fab Animals on the Underground clothing, where animals have been "found" in the London Underground Map. My "Hound" vest and hipster knickers arrived yesterday. They rock!!! This hipster knickers are possibly the most comfortable pair of pants I've worn and are really soft.

However, don't get too excited, you may need a small mortgage if you are thinking of tiling the whole bathroom with them. These tiles are £59.99 per set of six - nice!! (Thanks to Fimb for providing the updated pricing and stockist information)

I heard this guy, Steve Grant, on HeartFM news saying that a few months ago Tube staff were being praised as heroes (in fact Tony Blair praised them officially earlier this week) and now The Standard are raking up stories about them not paying attention at the controls. Well, I actually think The Standard have a point. I often see trains pulling in where the driver has been reading a paper or having a cup of tea, and it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence and helps to fuel the argument that Tube drivers are overpaid for what they do (Tube Drivers can earn around £35,000). I suppose the trains are designed to work with little driver intervention sometimes, and the union official is right about the fact that no one has died because of this.

Any thoughts or any more news on this?

UPDATE - Just had a chance to look at District Dave's Forum which has been discussing this since yesterday and it appears, the train with no driver picture didn't exist, but there were others:

Colin said: "I walked down to Tower Hill station from Fenchurch Street, on my way into work and see all the SubStandard (nickname for The Evening Standard) signs emblazoned with "train with no driver - see amazing pictures". As it was only 20p I thought sod it I'll buy a copy rather than wait and find one later. Gets about three pages in to see three pictures - all with drivers in the cab. So they're false advertising then. Of course anyone else doing that would have a story written about them. The pictures show a driver drinking a tea/coffee, a driver reading something and, admittedly a little concerning, a driver with a very young child in the cab. Any of these activities could quite easily occur at any platform. Considering how clear the pictures are, I'm astounded that the trains are actually moving - especially at the claimed 35mph."

I know that these turn ups on boots are very popular right now, but for me the jury's still out. Every time I see a person in them, I feel like slapping my thigh and saying, "Why there young Dick, which way to London?"

Peasant Boots

These boots would probably be very appropriate for a peasant extra in something like Jack and the Beanstalk

Beyond Description

The following boots really defy description for me, but I think that some pantomime director would be able to find a good use for them

Aladdin Shoes

She must have been a bit cold in the shoes, as I only snapped this woman last night. But full marks for going out in December more or less in a pair of sandals

Particularly loving the way these shoes turn up at the toes. All she needed was a genie's lamp and she would have been set up.

Metallic Boots

Not exactly pantomime, but I couldn't resist adding these metallic boots. We've had a lot of discussion over the weeks about (in my opinion), hideous, metallic bags, which I am STILL seeing all over the place. But this was the first time I had spotted some Metallic Boots

If you fancy a free mince pie and the chance to have a chat with some London Underground staff about the new seven car Tube trains pop along to Canary Wharf station between 4pm and 7pm this afternoon and evening. This was in this morning's Metro although I can't find anything on Metro's news feeds.

Regularreaders and people who know such things will know that the Jubilee Line will be getting longer trains from January 2006, and here's your chance to ask those involved whatever you want to ask.

"We will bring together all the evidence that we have, and we will publish it so that people, the victims and others, can see exactly what happened.

"But I really believe that at the present time, if we ended up having a full-scale public inquiry when actually we do essentially know what happened on July 7, we would end up diverting a massive amount of police and security service time, and I don't think it would be sensible."

We wonder at what time it would be sensible? Is there ever going to be a good time to do these investigations? The Home Secretary apparently consulted Scotland Yard on the implications of issuing the file to the public, possibly in an edited form.

Any report published by the Home Office would be the first official overview of the atrocities, which killed 52 innocent people on the London Underground at Aldgate, Edgware Road, Russell Square and King's Cross, and on a bus at Tavistock Square. So as usual, it's left to rumours and speculation and more mystery over what happened. The words "cover up" "Nanny state" "we know best" "You only need to know what we want to tell you" and "Blair is a fooking idiot" easily spring to mind.

In the meantime, the families of the victims and the survivors themselves are demanding answers. BBC News interviewed a number of survivors and family members of people who were killed. As regular readers know, blogger Rachel was on the King's Cross carriage when the bomb went off and her moving account of her survival and the aftermath has kept us all enthralled. In the interview she said, that ordinary people need to know the answers to their questions

"Apparently it will take too long, be too expensive and only tell us things we already know.

We have spent a thousand days in Iraq and £3.1bn. Is that too long? Is that too expensive? Is the link between Iraq and 7 July what we already know? Of course it is.

Ordinary people, not politicians take the buses and tubes each day. Ordinary people pay the price for wars and policies politicians implement.

We have questions, we deserve public answers."

Fortunately Rachel is not going to keep quiet about this and on her blog she says:

"Even if you don't like the questions, don't like the answers, think you know the answers already, Mr Blair, it is us, not you, who are paying the cost for this, every single bloody day. If the cost of answering questions makes you squirm, then too bad. We voted you in, we pay for you and your wars and your policies to be implemented and you say you act 'in our name'. We run the risks on the trains, the buses, the streets each day. You answer to us, the public and if I could shame you into answering us now, my God, I would."

In the meantime Rachel has set up a petition which she urges you to sign a petition to show our support. If you believe that we should have public inquiry, please sign and also publicise on your own website or blog too.

A fab little book which explores the origins of every Tube and DLR station name. The amazon reviewer gives a typical entry:

"DEBDENtakes its name from a natural location of the area and is recorded as Deppendana in the Domesday Book. It is derived from the Old English DEP, 'deep' and DEN, 'valley' - which means simply 'the deep valley'. It was recorded as Depeden in 1227. The station was opened by the Great Eastern Railway as Chigwell Road on 24 April 1865, and re-named Chigwell Lane on 1 December 1865. It was again renamed as Debden on 25 September 1949 when first used by Underground trains."

It's great how you get other information including the year the station opened, and the name changes that have since occurred. There's also black and white photos of many of the stations or their immediate surroundings.

I also like the cover with the strange mis-spelling of station names - "Holeburne" "Pynnor" and "Dolly's Hill". A bargain at £4.95.

Mecca's book - One Stop Short of Barking claims that Waterloo (northbound on the Bakerloo Line) is a particularly good place to spot mice, and says that they are most likely to be found wherever more food wrappers are dropped.

In her book she cites a station assistant announcement to a couple of kids who were peering at some mice on the track:

"'This is an announcement for the two children near the edge of the platform. Please do not stare at the mice under the tracks, as they are in fact Albanian killer mice and very dangerous. Please stand well back from the platform edge'

As the kids stopped looking and sheepishly backed away, the same voice came back over the system: 'This is an announcement for the mice on the station: "Eek, eek, eek, eek, eek!' Thank you"

Some of you appeared to be a bit disapproving of the the Mind the Gap thong suggested on Friday as a London Underground gift. Well, particularly when it came to the idea that the thong might be unisex, and the idea of men wearing it didn't go down brilliantly.

Worry no more, as the excellent Animals on the Underground site has come up with two perfect pairs of underwear for gentlemen and the laydeez. I blogged Animals on the Underground quite some time ago when it was launched by someone who "found" animals "hidden" in the Tube map. Since then the site has gone from strength to strength and has now surpassed itself with these fab men's trunks with an elephant strategically placed

I was a bit worried that you might not be able to order them in time for Xmas, so I called Nick Thomas the guy who runs the site and he said that if you order by this Friday 16th December, they will do their utmost to try to deliver for Christmas. They also do T shirts, babygro's and bibs, and christmas mugs.

They rock - big time!

UPDATE - Bless Nick Thomas, as he's actually added this post to their news section, I just discovered it when buying myself some Hound dog hipster knickers! I'm now bumping up by order to thirty quid so I get free postage! Cheers Nick!

"Funded by the UK Film Council, Creep was directed by ex-EastEnders scriptwriter Christopher Smith and stars German actress Franka Potente, who appeared alongside Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. Critics have called it the best horror film set in the capital since American Werewolf In London.

It plots the fate of a smart young woman who leaves a party to find a less boring one but never arrives. Drunks and sewage workers are shown being dragged into Tube tunnels and cut up with a chainsaw. It was filmed in three disused stations - Down Street near Green Park, Strand and Aldwych." said The Evening Standard

The London Underground has been featured in PC games before (disused station ((Aldgate - correction)) Aldwych(!)), is in a Lara Croft game) and I'm sure there are tons and tons of games that I have missed, but Jon Choo emailed me about the soon to be released Hellgate: London which has strange demonic creatures prowling London and the Tube and blasting the hell out of each other. A review of the game in PC Gamespy says:

"London turns out to be the perfect city in which to set a demon-infested dungeon crawl. This sprawling city has seen its share of disasters, and it's been rebuilt again and again since Roman times. Aside from the baffling mix of centuries old architecture, London also boasts multiple underground networks. Everything from Roman aqueducts to a mail train network to the famous London Underground and World War II bomb-shelters. These sprawling underground networks make for perfect dungeons."

The makers of the game Flagship also agree: "Set in the near future, London is caught in the aftermath of a demonic invasion. Mankind has been driven into the sanctuary of the Underground in order to survive, desperately hoping to one day regain a foothold in the rapidly decaying world above."

You can see a video clip of the Hellgate:London here (Quicktime). From a first person view you pass a bus stop with the London Transport roundel on it, then go into the Tube system, down an escalator where you face the demons on the tracks.

I've blogged my love of this particular James Blunt song a number of times (here, here and here). The song is about that passing encounter you might have with a stranger on a subway, where you pass them, and think "Mmm, he or she is hot" and you know you'll never see them again.

The lines "she smiled at me on the subway, she was with another man" do actually refer to the Tube. James Blunt was on BBC on Saturday night and according to Geoff ""Goodbye my Lover" is about a girl, THE girl for him that dumped him that he believed was 'the one' and he couldn't believe it when she ended it. It turned his world upside down.

"You're beautiful" is then about when he saw her for the first time a few months later after she'd dumped him. It was on an underground train in london, they met eyes for a second - a lifetime flashed by - he said - and then she turned away, got back with her new bloke and they got off the train, and he's never seen her since."

UPDATE - Just to dispell the rumours that I fancy James Blunt or think all of his songs are brilliant - I don't. In my opinion You're Beautiful is an excellently written love song and deserves all the plaudits. However, I was sent a link to a truly funny and wonderful spoof of the video to You're Beautiful, entitled You're Gullible. You can even throw rotten tomatoes at James while he sings. James Blunt (like Jamie Oliver) is certainly one of those people that you love or hate! Well done to the eclectech guys for actually doing something funny and entertaining though, rather than just bleating on about how much they hate something.

When I first read this in Metro I thought it was hysterical, but I spose today, now that I've seen more reports of it and realise it's probably not the most responsible thing in the world, to be in charge of a high speed train with 400 commuters and stripping off to have a lark with your mates!

However, I also found through The Sun, that a couple had been found well... er.... copping off with each other in a state of undress in the driver's cab of a train.

The Sun in a rather outraged fashion reported that "A SHOCKING video of a train driver having sex with a woman in his cab sparked fury last night. The tape, handed to The Sun, shows him groping the brunette, stripping off her clothes and performing sex acts....."

"It emerged on the day we revealed another driver had been sacked for stripping naked in his cab in a high-speed game of dare. At least FIVE other Midland Mainline drivers are said to be trying to out-do each other in shocking antics.

But the Derby-based company insisted the driver in the steamy train sex video was not one of their employees. The new 53-second mobile phone video shows the uniformed man putting passengers' lives at risk as he abandons the controls to romp."

Ah, how I love the word "romp".

The article continues "One furious railway worker accused the drivers of 'playing Russian Roulette with passengers' lives'." Andy Reid, Labour MP for Loughborough, Leics - which is served by Midland Mainline - said: "This is a serious issue. Some people might see this as a bit a laugh but I think most passengers would be worried if they knew the driver of their train was not fully in control. There is a time and a place for pranks and behind the wheel of a train travelling at 125mph is not one of them."

The Sun - ever the public watchdog and I'm sure in an attempt to find the evil sex crazed driver, rather than in an effort to get an exclusive scoop and sell more papers close the article by asking "DO you know the driver? Call The Sun on blah, blah, blah, blah."